


Like Real People Do

by crystalphobic



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Voyager is the ultimate found family I do not accept criticism on that, this is somewhere post-resolutions but also seven is here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:01:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22851430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalphobic/pseuds/crystalphobic
Summary: when she loses a member of her family the captain feels as though she lost a part of herselfchakotay is the first person on board she goes to for reassuranceprompt: "I’m sad and lonely please just hold me for a while”
Relationships: Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	Like Real People Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soggywormcircus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soggywormcircus/gifts).



> originally written for a friend, so not all of this is on-brand with canon and/or fanon.
> 
> but we're all here because C/J is best and canon can rot in a ditch. enjoy!

When a casualty occurs on Voyager the ship becomes quiet.

Every deck, from the mess hall to the sick bay, fills with a heavy kind of silence.

People still walk the halls, the engines still give off their sounds and communications still went through.

But the ship is quiet.

  
  


Accidents happen all the time- on any starship, no matter the quadrant. Broken bones, bruises, burns... away-missions gone awry.

The latter did have a greater impact on a ship’s crew when they were the only one of their kind in a range of tens of thousands of lightyears.  
  


All it took was an anomaly in the planet’s atmosphere that clashed with the shuttle’s engine and…boom.

A member of their family was gone.

  
  


Kathryn made it a point to tell herself regularly that responsibility and fault were two seperate things. As a captain she was _responsible_ for the well being of her crew. _All_ of her crew.  
  


The senior officers had people reporting to them every day, of course, but their responsibility ended there. With the specific set of people reporting to them. They all shared in the devotion to the ship, but the fact remained that if an engineer tripped over a wrench you couldn’t hold the chief of security accountable.  
  


She didn’t have that kind of distinction in what or who she could be made accountable for. She was the _captain_. First in command.

Eventually everything circled back to her.

But was it her _fault_ that the shuttle exploded? No. 

Laying the blame for a natural phenomenon that their sensors couldn’t predict on _her_ would be an inconceivably illogical act.

Tuvok had reassured her of that, and while Kathryn had a tendency to put her full trust in the vulcan she never could help blaming herself.

Just a little. Just enough to make the silence after a death more painful for her than most of the crew.

  
  


For all the joking nature of the quips about her being the ‘mother hen’ of the ship, there was a bit of truth to them.

Most of the crew, Maquis or Starfleet, were younger than her. Not inexperienced or immature, but _young_. With all their life ahead of them.

And she was the one _responsible_ for making sure they’d be able to happily live that life- on Earth. Not cooped up on a ship in the middle of uncharted space.

She didn’t harbor maternal affection for anyone in particular, but she was for all intents and purposes their matriarch. The person everyone looked to for guidance, advice, on occasion even comfort.

And try as she might to distance herself; sometimes the barriers faltered and she found herself sharing _very_ personal moments with members of the crew.

She found a hardened lieutenant crying because she realised she’d missed her only sister’s wedding.

She bumped into an ensign running out of the mess hall after he lashed out at another crewman. They reminded him of the nephew whose accomplishments he'd never get to see.

Once she interrupted a full blown fight over who got to use the holodeck first. A particularly hard decision to make since both crewmen hadn’t been able to use the hologram technology to see scenes of their life back home for equal amounts of time.  
  
  


As ‘Captain’ she technically wouldn’t have been able to do anything in these situations, but as Kathryn Janeway she could offer a modicum of consolation.

And that consolation became her downfall whenever something like this happened.

Because now the ship was quiet with the death of one of it’s ‘children’ still fresh in everyone’s mind.

Kathryn never enjoyed the whole ‘sending off a pod-shaped casket into the vastness of space’ ceremony.

Before the Caretaker incident she simply viewed it as part of a captain’s duties. Hold a speech, signal the whistle to be blown, and release the pod.  
  
  
Now it entailed saying goodbye to one of her own. Not her flesh and blood but might as well justly calling themselves such.  
  
  


It hurt.

She was sad, hurt, lonely. Grieving.

And she really needed a hug.

  
  


It was over quickly enough. No banquet, only moderate amounts of food provided by Neelix, and very little chatter.

It wasn’t customary for the captain to stay at a funeral longer than necessary. Starfleet protocol didn’t say anything about her presence being required for anything other than the immediate ‘burial’ ceremony.

Usually Kathryn made use of that lack of protocol to spend some time on her own.  
Reflect on what happened.  
Maybe devise a plan for implementing the newest required safety precautions.

She did none of that this time.

Voyager was a home to her, and unless aliens were actively messing with its structure- or her head- she knew the entire ship from prow to rear.

Yet, in her current state of mind, she simply couldn’t tell where she was headed as she walked through the corridors of whatever deck she was on.

She didn’t know.

Or maybe some part of her did, because when her legs eventually begged her to come to a halt she found herself in front of the quarters of her first officer.

Coincidence?

If she was honest Kathryn stopped believing in the concept two years into her journey.  
  
  


After some thinking she concluded that she must have realised Chakotay was the most _logical_ source of comfort for her. Due to some combined factors.

He’d left the funeral before her, meaning he’d be in his quarters where they could talk undisturbed.

Their rank being the closest she wouldn’t be in grave danger of getting accused of abuse of power if she asked him to talk with her.

And because of the time they spent together on and off-duty he knew her better than anyone else on board. Anyone that wasn’t tall dark and vulcan.

  
  


A sound decision, really, and well executed by her subconscious mind and body.  
  


Now the proper thing to do was turn around and _not go through with it_.  
  
  
  


Despite all the neat logic and reasoning she could come up with in her head something _else_ wouldn’t let her simply use the pad next to the door and ask for entrance.

It felt improper somehow.

Kathryn Janeway hadn’t felt improper in a long while.

Untoward, maybe, and indelicate in certain situations, but nothing that would make her feel so...ashamed.  
  


She had bounds and limits like everyone else, but after so many years on a starship _shame_ was something she banished from her daily life. Guilt she was familiar with, and anger, frustration- but this? How awful.

There wasn't anything inherently shameful about her actions- actions she hadn’t even gone through with at this point. If there was something as a ship’s counsellor she was sure they’d say the same. But as it was she just stood in front of her first officer’s door.  
Frozen in place.

Was it the age old fear of rejection? Of being turned away? Being _dismissed_?

How often did _she_ ‘dismiss’ someone when talking to them about matters that were important to _them_?

The door swished open before she could delve deeper into the rabbit hole of questions about this new feeling of inadequacy.  
  


Chakotay was in no rush, but still almost bumped into her before his mind caught up with his legs. She stood right in the doorway after all.  
  
  


“ _Kath-ptain?_ Uh- Captain?”

“Chakotay.”

“Can I….help you?”

“May I come in?”  
  


The commander looked her up and down once, twice, before he took a step back and made a gesture to invite her in.  
  


“Be my guest.”

  
  
  


The door closed behind the two of them and suddenly the captain was alone.

With Chakotay.

In his room.

Alone.

“Chakotay I-”

“Captain-”

Both were reasonably surprised by their synchronicity, but only Chakotay was able to laugh it off.  
  
  


“Please, do go first. I was going to ask what made you drop by so unexpectedly anyway.”

His smile wasn’t as bright and charming as usual, which she found understandable. The ensign’s death weighed as heavy on his mind as much as on anybody else’s.  
  


Still, it was dazzling enough to make her temporarily forget whatever words had started to come out of her mouth.

In these moments of prolonged silence Kathryn realised how bizzare her arrival must look like to the commander.

It wasn’t unusual for them to pay visits to each other, but whenever they did their arrival and subsequent activities were more or less carefully planned.

Writing reports and discussing crew performance over dinner didn’t _warrant_ much planning, but at least she announced she’d be dropping by beforehand.

Just now she charged into his quarters with no hint of her usual Starfleet Approved posture or attitude.

Her hair was down, the front of her jacket undone and she was a little flushed from the walk- and the cascade of thoughts earlier in front of the door.

  
  


“I just had to see you.”  
  


“What a coincidence, I was already on my way to see _you_ in your ready room.”  
  


“My ready room? Not my quarters?”  
  


“I assumed you’d already be talking with Tom and B’Elanna about a way to modify the shuttle’s engine. So we can complete the planet survey?”  
  
  


The assumption made her do a double take. She blinked, quite dumbfounded- was that really the first thing the commander thought she’d do?  
  
  


“Oh. Yes, I suppose- you think I wouldn’t give them even a day of respite?”  
  


“That’s- no! Not what I meant. You don’t usually stay in your quarters when...this happens.”

Chakotay, who was bordering on uneasy before, had now gone into full tension mode.

“You do have a tendency to ah- hole up. Until all remaining risks are eliminated. Which is admirable!”  
  


_‘Yes, admirable for a captain, but for a_ normal _person?’_

Kathryn wanted to pry, but seeing her first officer shift nervously on his feet made her think better of it.

He was obviously grappling with how he had _wanted_ his words to come across and how they actually came out.

“It’s why I didn’t quite.. _.ever_ … expect you here, right now.”

“Well, here I am.”

It was Chakotay’s turn to pause, his expression unreadable.  
  


“So you are. But you still haven’t told me why.”

An old song came to mind when Kathryn stopped to properly think about the answer. She came up empty.  
  


“Should you be asking that? It’s not like I question where you came from every time you stop by my quarters.”

Did it even really matter? She was _here_.

Usually she ended up being at the right place at the right time and things unfolded around her in just the way that would make it apparent to her and everyone else what was supposed to be done.

That wasn’t the case this time, as she still had no idea what had gotten her to thoughtlessly invade her friend’s precious private moments.

  
  


In an instant she regretted her words and shook her head, not seeing Chakotay step closer.

He placed his hands on her shoulders and tried to meet her eyes. Even though she avoided looking straight at him the worry in his voice was clear.

“Kathryn, what’s going on? Do you need to go to sickbay? I’ll walk you there if-”  
  


“No, no, it’s not- I don’t feel sick.”

Where her expression was still neutral, a little distant even, Chakotay’s was somewhere close to anguished as he tried to find any evidence of what might be wrong with his captain.

“Then what is it?”

“I’m...sad and lonely.”  
  


The words came out more even than expected, but not without difficulty.

Even though the next part was far more surprising to hear. Coming from none other than Captan Kathryn Janeway herself.  
  


“Please just hold me for a while.”

  
  
  


The captain always managed to surprise Chakotay.

Every day, in different ways.

Sometimes big sometimes small, but never ceasing to amaze him.

When she came back from the dead, for example, a big surprise.

He knew she’d come back to him, one way or another, but the way she simply put her foot down and said ‘no’ to death...well, suffice it to say he was never more sure of his feelings for her.

Admiration. Respect. Affection.  
  


Perhaps an unhealthy amount of affection. For a first officer, anyway.

Today she surprised him by managing to keep a completely straight face as she asked him to hug her.  
Or ordered him to, rather?

The ‘please’ was certainly a very recent addition to her vocabulary.

He wasn’t sure.

Chakotay’s mind hadn’t been interpreting things right ever since he almost ran into her in front of his door. Looking positively disheveled for captain standards.

It really wasn’t fair, the things an open jacket and a flush to her cheeks did to him.

Regardless of her appearance his captain had made a request.

It’s not like holding Kathryn was something he’d ever refuse.

And she could put him in the brig for mutiny if he didn’t comply.

With no further hesitation Chakotay released her shoulders and opened his arms. She wrapped hers around him so swiftly he’d hardly be able to tell it was happening if he wasn’t hyper-aware of her weight leaning into him.  
  


He held her, refusing to do something that would embarrass the both of them- like saying ‘ _there, there_ ’ and patting her back, something he’d seen Seven do during her socializing lessons with the doctor.

Their proximity allowed him to feel her body go from tensed and strained to fully relaxed within seconds. He must be doing it right.

  
  


“Do you wanna talk?...About the ensign?”  
  


“She was only 27, Chakotay. If you look at recent medical development that’d mean her life wasn’t even a _quarter_ of the way over.”

Kathryn turned her head and spoke softly into the otherwise silent room.

“She had a niece enrolling in a junior starfleet program. She was looking forward to sharing her discoveries with that girl and- and now she’ll never get to do that.”  
  


The point she was trying to make was clear and Chakotay had to compose himself before he could begin to counter her. The loss of the ensign's life was tragic, of course, but the captain beating herself up over it wouldn't help.  
  


“No, she won’t, but Kathryn do you know what _you_ get to do? You still get to tell that story. Her story. You’ll tell it to all the Starfleet officers in the Alpha Quadrant…that’s including her niece.”

He didn’t immediately realise he’d started to ever so gently sway them from side to side, but since he didn’t hear her protest he carried on with both the motion and his argument.

“And all the crew will be telling that story, too. All we can do now is make sure nobody else gets lost on the way.”

“Gets lost? Chakotay how can you say it like that? That shuttle incident was-”  
  


“ _Not your fault_. Even if you had been the person monitoring the sensors there’s nothing you could have done to prevent this. I know this, the crew knows this, and the ensign knew it too.”

In a motion that went far smoother than expected Chakotay took a small step back and raised a hand up to Kathryn’s cheek. The captain wasn’t crying, but she had that tell-tale look of sorrow on her face. He made it his personal mission to get that expression off of her face.

“You mean the world to this crew. To me. I for one would never even begin to _imagine_ losing my trust in you.”  
  


Chakotay was once again looking for eye contact.

The captain could read his eyes remarkably well, far better than any of his Maquis colleagues. She’d know he was telling nothing but the gospel truth.  
  


“This is a sentiment shared by everyone on board. And if we see you lose faith in yourself… I doubt we’d stop at anything to get you back on your feet.”

  
  


The sound of her trying to fight a giggle was the second surprise of the day.

_“Anything_ ? I see that includes cradling your captain in your arms. I don’t think I’d like to see Ensign Kim try that.”  
  


“You woudn’t? I hear Harry gives great hugs.”  
  


“You hear? Where are you getting your intelligence from?”  
  


“Oh, from the _wrong_ Delaney sister.”  
  


“Poor Jenny...or was it Megan?”  
  


“Honestly, who knows?”

  
  


They laughed for a bit, arms still wrapped around each other.  
  


And then the silence set back in.

Not the ship-wide, deafening silence, but one that they hadn’t experienced since their second year of travelling on Voyager.

The silence of their evenings on New Earth, with only each other as their sole company.

“Should I put on music? I know you ordered a ‘holding’, but I’m not sure if you’re comfortable just...standing here.”  
  


“Well, I’m not just ‘standing here’, am I? I’m standing here _with you_.”

Chakotay cleared his throat, eyes actively seeking the ceiling as an alternative to his captain’s more happy face. It appeared he dug his own grave.

In this moment he feared if he looked at it too long it would tempt them to break Starfleet fraternization protocol.  
  


Yet he couldn’t bring himself to just let her leave.

In the Delta Quadrant a chance like this might never present itself again.

“So, you’re feeling cozy and now you don’t want to stop? How ever will I enter this into my log?”

_How can I interpret these actions?_

“I think it’d be quite fine to omit the finer details of my visit, Chakotay.”

_Just how long do I plan to stay?_

“Ha- Kathryn, if you continue like this I’ll have to file a report for Starfleet Command. ‘Captain uses inappropriate tactics to falsify first officer’s logs.’”

_‘With first officer’s full consent.’ Isn’t that right?_

“...I like that you’re calling me Kathryn again. Really takes me back. To before- well, a lot of things.”

The captain made no move to step away from Chakotay, and he had no intention of being the one to let go first.

He _was_ first to notice that she’d shifted her stance to look at his face.

Chakotay had never seen her look so beautiful- starlight filtering in through the window, strands of her auburn hair falling over her eye, the red in her cheeks now coming from laughter rather than anxiety.

He didn’t say it out loud, afraid it might break the spell, but Kathryn knew well enough what he was thinking.

  
  


Being stranded in a completely uncharted part of the galaxy gave him some unique opportunities as a researcher. For example, seeing a supernova happening in real time, right in front of his eyes.

The feeling he had when he watched that star implode into tens of thousands of colors and particles was a heart-wrenching one, something that resounded deep in his bones- further, even, all the way into his soul.

That feeling didn’t even come _close_ to the starburst of emotion in his head when Kathryn’s lips first met his.

* * *

  
  


“I think we need to talk about us.”  
  


“Surprising you’re willing to admit there is an ‘us’ now.”  
  


“I think theres always been an us.”  
  


“And if I had things _my_ way theres always gonna be an us.”  
  


“Actually, cut the talk. Let’s just kiss.”  
  


“Like real people do?”

“Like real people do.”


End file.
